


Floweret

by diathlu



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Age Difference, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1990s, Angst, Domestic Kink, Extremely Underage, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Masturbation, Pining, Size Difference, Suicidal Thoughts, Underage - Freeform, Underage Drinking, Underage Drug Use, Underage Smoking, Voyeurism, implied suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-16
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-08-24 15:30:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16642889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diathlu/pseuds/diathlu
Summary: It's July 1st, 1991 when Ben sees Rey for the first time.He falls in love instantly.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic will include some extremely underage content/situations. If this squicks you, I suggest you don't read.
> 
> Ben starts out 22 and Rey starts out at 8, though nothing of significance (?) happens until she's 13.

It's July 1st, 1991 when Ben sees Rey for the first time. The little girl, just eight years old then, comes skidding on her knees into his grass, yelling something unintelligible at one of the boys who live in the foster home next door. Over the past year, he's spent more than enough time glaring out the window at those incorrigible children to know that she's new. She turns her freckled cheeks up to where he's standing on the front porch, a cigarette hanging between his fingers, and flashes a partially-toothless smile.

He falls in love instantly.

It isn't love with any kind of sexual connotations; at least not at first. Rey is ten years old when Ben hears a knocking on his door. He's in the middle of reading over the curriculum for one of his classes, but grumbles and pulls himself away from his desktop and chances a peek through the peephole. There stands a little brunette, taller than she'd been two years ago. Normally, a child coming up to one's door with a clipboard is a red flag, but there's no way he can deny her anything (she makes him weak at the knees). When he opens the door and offers a half-smile, she returns it with a wide grin. Her cheeks and the tip of her button nose are both rosy, but he can still see her freckles. For some reason, she's wearing a sheen of sparkly lipgloss.

 _For some reason_ , it makes his cock stir. Ben buys an entire case of chocolates from her — the caramel ones, because Rey claims they're her favourite. Maybe he can . . . include them in any obligatory Christmas cards he has to send out.

Ben's twenty-fifth birthday is uneventful at best, but that's the way he likes it. His mother calls around dinner time, reminds him that her card should be coming in the mail any day now, and parts with the obligatory _I love you_ s. By the end of the night, he's laid out in bed with his hand wrapped around his cock. The other is resting behind his head, lounging as he leisurely strokes himself to full hardness.

This fantasy starts out like any other. Ben settles on a faceless brunette, preferably on her knees. Safe, simple. He imagines burying a hand in her short waves as he pulls her closer, and she looks up at him with wide, hazelnut eyes as her tiny mouth struggles to take him. But she'll do it, he tells her she _can_ as he strokes a thumb over her speckled cheek. Skin as soft as a baby's. Eventually, she manages to swallow him down, though her eyes are teary and her throat bulges out obscenely. The latter image is what pushes the man over the edge. It isn't until he comes down from the best orgasm he's had in years that he realises he'd been imagining little Rey the whole time. Only eleven. Across the way, he can see the soft light of her bedroom illuminating her cream curtains.

After that, he goes celibate. It's no easy feat, not when Rey's room is across the way. If she leaves her drapes open he can see in, clear enough that he knows she's beginning to take an interest in classic rock (she has posters of Motley Crue and Aerosmith pinned to her walls). There are clothes all over the floor, and sometimes he can't look away when he sees her changing and adding to the mess. The girl still doesn't need bras; he's caught her massaging her barely there breasts while looking in her vanity mirror dozens of times, always with a displeased look on her face. Ben has denied himself release since that fateful jerk off session, but that doesn't stop it from getting achingly hard, to the point where he hisses in pain when he tries to adjust himself to let off some of the pressure.

These feelings he has often leave him feeling sick because he isn't stupid; he's a teacher (when Rey finds this out she takes advantage, asks for his help, insists he let her inside, where she sits cross-legged in her little uniform skirts), he doesn't get off on kiddie porn. Every woman he's dated in the past has been near to his age, _legal_. The sunny little girl has become an exception, his obsession, and it's wrong no matter which angle he looks at it from. Ben is wrapped around her little fingers, yet finds every other noisy child in this neighborhood to be an annoyance. It doesn't make any sense; he's thrown fits, punched holes in walls, taken freezing cold showers where he sits under the icy spray until his skin is buzzing and numb.

Rey is thirteen when she starts high school. Ben is glad that he doesn't teach at the Catholic school, though still spends the better part of his days dreaming about her long legs under her checkered skirt. She came over the day before her first to show it off, and then griped about not being able to wear jeans. It took every ounce of his precarious self control not to say that he's glad she can't.

Roughly four months later it's nearly Christmas; in November he turned twenty-seven and now he's grading a stack of mostly half-assed essays on the portrayal of various Gods and Goddesses in _The Odyssey_. Freshman are his bane, but next year he'll be working with upperclassmen (he's working his way up to becoming a college professor). Across the way, he can see Rey's bedroom light flick on and his attention is completely stolen away the moment she settles upon her bed — it's pushed against the same wall as her window, and his desk is incoincidently set in front of his. Her golden legs raise up, heels pressed into the mattress. Ben's heart stills as he watches her start to kick, until her panties are hanging daintily on the raise of one knobby knee.

Rey's tiny hand reaches down between her spread thighs, where he can't see but has (against all efforts) imagined time and time again. Just like that over a year of celibacy is put to an end. The man fumbles to undo the fly of his jeans, pulls his aching cock from the confines of his boxers, and starts at a pace far too quick and rough considering how long it's been since he's directly touched himself. Pain keeps him from ejaculating too quickly, allows him to revel in the fantasy image of her reddened cheeks and parted lips. She wears lipgloss every day now.

All he can see is the stretch of her arm, moving up and down as she presumably pumps her lithe fingers into her cunt. It has to be wet, glistening, maybe even hairless and the mere thought is all he needs. Ben comes long before Rey, spilling all over his fingers and across his shirt, but he keeps his hand wrapped tight around the base as he watches her, mesmerised. When she reaches her release, her legs begin to tremble. He can imagine her toes curling into the flowered sheets, the way her head must tip back as she lets out hushed moans so that the other kids in the house don't hear her.

Ben _wishes_ he could hear her.

Instead, the second she starts shifting off of her bed, he gets up and runs to the bathroom like a scared little boy. After half an hour spent under a freezing shower, he cries himself to sleep in heavy, heaving sobs that leave his pillow soaked and his eyes crusty. Something is wrong with him. Sure, Rey has taken a liking to him (more than any kids do), but she still ends up stomping off while calling him a jerk more often than not. But none of that matters, because she's fifteen years younger than he is. A _child_ , and still the image of her pale, pink panties hanging from her leg is like a stain on his mind. Right there. In front of her window.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Changed up the tags. That'll happen as the story develops.

1997.

Rey has developed a habit of sneaking out. Ben catches her one chilly night; it's too dark for her to see into his room, but he can see when she slides open her window and meticulously pops out the screen. Crafty thing that she is manages not to get caught as she puts everything back into place and looks around before speeding towards the sidewalk. That night, he doesn't sleep until she slinks back home, plagued with equal parts curiosity and concern. He feels like his eyes are glazing over by the time she's safely inside the confines of her room, window shut tight.

It becomes routine for Ben to stay up while she goes out, even if his own sleeping schedule suffers for it. The girl routinely slips out around the same time, two hours after lights out (which he's learned is nine, or ten on the weekends) multiple times a week. There are never set days, so he catches her when he can, keeps his own window cracked so that he'll hear the faint rustling across the way in case he starts nodding off. Every fibre of his being demands he follow her, make sure she's okay ( _see if she's fucking off with some boy_ ), but every night it happens he stays pinned to his desk chair until her inevitable return.

March twelfth is Rey's fourteenth birthday. Every year Ben goes out and pretends to buy her something, takes "impromptu" trips to the mall (he hates the mall) where he gazes longingly at band shirts, records, jewelry. Things he thinks she might like, but knows that he'll never get her.

Except, this year he does spontaneously purchase a necklace with a thin, gold chain and a similarly golden sunflower charm. It would look beautiful against her tanned skin, but as soon as he gets home he realises how _stupid_ he is and decides he'll return it the following day.

That night, he cranks open his window in anticipation of Rey leaving, her own pushed wide open in ready. It's her birthday, after all, and what teenager wouldn't want to go out and goad some twenty-one year old into buying them beer and cigarettes (or whatever it is she does when she's gone AWOL)? However, ten minutes into waiting, Ben picks up on a soft, though still distinct sound coming from beyond her mesh screen. A muffled sniffling, feeble moans followed by hitched breaths as the girl . . . cries? Rey is _crying_ and all he can do is _listen_ like the drip he is.

When she belts out a warbled wail, Ben feels his chest grow unbearably heavy with grief, hands folding into paper-white fists. He feels pathetically useless, unable to do anything more than sit here and listen. The cries of lonely desperation aren't something unbeknownst to him; he's felt it, too. The aching hollowness of being a kid pushed to the side, unwanted and without a place to call home. It hasn't been difficult to dig up Rey's information when her current caretaker is all too eager to over-share. Poor girl doesn't even have a last name to call her own, has spent nearly ten years being bumped from one turbulent home to the next after her junkie parents handed her over to the system like abandoning some unwanted pet.

If only she knew that she doesn't have to feel this way, that she _isn't_ alone. Ben is right across the street, already so wrapped up around the little girl's fingers that he's entirely sure he'd kill for her. Given the opportunity, he'd bring her to his chest and let her tears soak though his shirt until she's gotten it all out. Obviously, he can't do any of that; can't crawl through her window like he might be able to if he were a teenager again, can't say he heard her weeping all the way from his window, can't offer any consolation. All he can do is listen until her choked sobs begin to ebb, and it isn't until he reaches out to slide his window shut that he realises there are tears streaming down his cheeks, too.

Subsequent to that night, Ben doesn't leave his window open as often in an unconscious effort to distance himself. That doesn't stop him from watching and waiting on the nights when he does catch her slipping out, a behaviour which only seems to become more and more frequent over the years. Once, he catches her pulling out a cigarette and perching it between her lips (he can't fault her when he's been smoking since twelve). Another time, he spots a dark-skinned boy in a leather jacket crouching outside and waiting for her. They leave together, and after watching a truck speed through the tiny sliver of road he can see from his seat, the man comes to a stand and makes for the nearest wall.

Ben forces his fists through the plaster until he makes a hole two times the size of his head. Both sets of knuckles are bleeding and purpled, but he doesn't feel any of it until the next morning, when regret fights to overcome that overwhelming, jealous rage.

Rey has a boyfriend. Or, he thinks that she does. It makes sense, given how beautiful and smart she is. Despite knowing that he doesn't have a chance, that even if he did it would be _wrong_ , Ben can't help being envious. He can give her more than some pencil-dicked teenager ever could. He'd make her happier, too, because he believes he understands her pain far better than any one else. But maybe he has this all wrong, maybe she isn't as lonely as he is, maybe she had one bad night and woke up sunshiny as always the next morning.

(That's bullshit, he _knows_ it's bullshit; they're both lonely, even if she's been through so much more than he ever has.)

Roughly two years later, Rey is nearing sixteen. That little, black velvet box with a golden sunflower inside is still safely tucked away in Ben's nightstand drawer.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written while traveling.
> 
> A little corny, but we all know Ben is a mushy sap.
> 
> Rey has double/space buns because it's the 90s.

March thirteenth, Rey is sitting cross-legged atop Ben's eggshell-brown carpet, still dressed in her little, pleated skirt. The coffee table is low enough that he can't see the way the hem is spread open, revealing her soft thighs (and quite possibly the panties underneath, which he always imagines are pink). Remarkably, his cock isn't hard so he's sat upon a chair adjacent to her despite yearning to be behind the girl, with her leaning back, between his spread knees.

"I don't get it." Rey huffs, shiny lips puckering up to blow at a loose strand of hair that fell from her double buns.

"Get what?" Ben quirks a brow as he watches her, hunched over an English text book with frayed corners. A wool, navy cardigan sporting her private school's insignia is pulled over her white polo shirt. All three buttons are undone and the way she's leaning her weight against her hand, elbow perched upon the wooden table, forces the collar to pull to the side. There are freckles splayed across what's visible of her chest; he swallows thickly and stares back down at her worn text book instead.

"What sublimity in poetry is supposed to be." She's studying the Romantic period, which in all honesty can be a little dry (if only because it was such a _pretentious_  movement), but Ben has always loved poetry. Whenever she drops by for help, it's for history or literature; he teaches the latter, but is an avid fan of the former. Rey is better at STEM subjects: math and science.

The first time the man realised just how much his neighbour girl has grown, she was fresh into her second year of high school. Long legs pumped hard as she ran around the block a few times while he stood on his front porch smoking cigarette after cigarette. Training for track since her middle school years was beginning to pay off; she was developing runner's calves, entire body gaining a soft layer of lean muscle.

"Sublime is . . ."

 _Rey_.

Ben cuts himself off, nervously fiddling with the pointed end of his loosened tie. She makes him feel like a boy again, but he's fifteen years ahead of her, had been in the throes of puberty when she was pushed into this world.

"Sublime is awe-worthy." _Rey_. "Beauty that inspires." _Rey_. "Brilliance." _Rey_.

And even though he's looking at the off-white wall behind the girl, his cheeks are blotted an ugly red because he can feel her eyes locked on him. Ben's throat runs dry when he finally meets her fiery gaze, and what he doesn't mean to say next comes croaked out.

"Something so enticing and lovely that, when you see it, your heart breaks because you know you can't have it." He's suddenly unable focus on anything other than the way her lashes sweep against the apples of her cheeks when she blinks.

"I turned sixteen yesterday." The way Rey says this sounds like an invitation that makes Ben's blood rush in two different directions so fast he feels dizzy.

"Happy birthday." He sputters out, fingers digging into the arms of his chair. The implication isn't really there, just something he's _hearing_. His mother's voice rings through his head, chastising him for his habit of making more out of a situation than there is, and that's certainly the case with Rey (and every other girl before, but never as maddeningly as her).

"Thanks." She reaches up and twirls a chestnut-brown lock around one finger, smoothing her lips together. Most of the gloss has worn off throughout the day; Ben likes it best like that. Two little brows scrunch together in thought for the briefest of moments, and then Rey bounces up onto her bare feet. She gets less than a foot in front of the man before he comes to an abrupt stand that forces her to stumble back. His work pants do nothing to conceal the thick protrusion pushing up against his zipper — he's so hard he can feel the teeth biting into the fabric of his boxers along the skin of his erection.

The girl's lips curl at the barest hint of a smile before it's interrupted by Ben pressing a hand against her shoulder, bodily pushing her to the side. A mix of confusion and betrayal cross her features and he knows that she's going to go off on him ( _and leave_ ) if he doesn't say something to amend this quickly.

"Just — wait." He has something for her, and suddenly can't think of a better time than now to give it to her.

Ben's long legs disappear up the stairs, and once his bedroom door slams shut he makes for the bathroom. There, he pushes his crotch up against the cool porcelain while he turns on and splashes cold water against his burning face. That's when he realises how hard he's breathing, as if he'd sprinted up seven flights of stairs rather than just one. It takes five minutes for him to flag, and two more minutes before he can hear Rey's voice yelling something unintelligible from down below.

Scrambling back into his bedroom, he yanks open his bedside drawer and pulls out that soft, little case. It's too long to be mistaken for a ring box, and for that Ben is glad. This is already inappropriate, he doesn't need to make it look any worse.

By the time he finds his way back to the living room, Rey is seated on the couch, boredly picking at a loose thread sticking out from the seam of its left arm. Her legs are crossed shut and her skirt is carefully tucked underneath her thighs. When she looks up, her expression is filled with expectancy though for what, exactly, Ben can't be sure.

"I got this for you." Unceremoniously, he thrusts the velvet box towards her, whose expression falters to a hushed awe.

 _Sublime_.

"What . . ?" Rey breathes out, reaching for the box with unsure fingers. Hesitating, she flips open the lid and all the air seems to leave her lungs in a rush. The way she reaches down to touch the chain tells Ben that she's afraid she'll break it.

"It made me think of you. The flower." He admits, rubbing at the back of his neck when her softened expression flickers up towards his face. "I could put it on you, if you want." _He_  wants.

Without a word, she pushes herself up and hands the box back over to him. Truthfully, Ben isn't so sure he won't break the delicate chain with his oversized, clumsy fingers, but he pulls the piece of jewelry from the opening, anyways, unable to deny her silent acceptance of his request. After a struggle, he manages to fasten the clasp behind her slim neck, though not without allowing his fingertips to sweep over the soft skin there (he thinks she shudders, _sees_ the gooseflesh force the baby hairs at her nape to stand on end).

They've only ever shared prolonged contact when Rey was younger and came to him with scrapes and bruises after rough days of play, so when she turns around to throw her arms around his neck Ben doesn't know what to do with his hands. Eventually, they settle on the dip of her waist, loosely holding the girl there until she breaks the embrace. No way in hell would he have pulled away first.

"Thank you." She mumbles against his shoulder, sound muffled by the fabric of his button-up. Just like that, she's sat at his coffee table once again, scribbling something in her notebook. When Ben finally forces his lead feet to move, he sees her making notes on the poem her text book is open to.

" _She was a phantom of delight_ ," Ben reads the first line, as well as the title of the work. " _When first she gleamed upon my sight; a lovely apparition sent_." Now, he does take a seat on the couch behind her, though presses himself up against the side where Rey had been when he entered the room rather than crowding up behind her.

Rey packs her things into her bookbag half an hour later, and so he sees her to the door. Just before she descends his porch steps, she pauses and turns long enough to leave him with her parting words.

"In the Victorian era, sunflowers were given to people as a show of loyalty and adoration." Ben refuses to believe there's any sort of underlying message to this, but his stomach still twists anxiously.

As soon as the door swings shut, he re-enters the living room and slides into the floor, sitting up against the couch just like Rey had been. The spot is still warm, and the man doesn't even think twice as he impulsively reaches between his legs to free his cock. It doesn't take much to bring himself to full hardness, not after Rey _teased_ him all afternoon. At least, that's what he finds himself fantasising about. Every little slip of golden skin, the way she nibbled her eraser in thought, how she trembled under his touch — it was all on purpose. (He knows it wasn't, but now he's dedicated to the fantasy.)

Ben's hand flies over his cock as he imagines what could have happened if he hadn't left the room earlier. Would she have let him kiss her cupid-bow lips? Taste whatever sugary sweet flavour of gloss she was wearing that day as he slipped his tongue into her mouth? All he had to do was pull Rey down and she would have been straddling him, the seam of her cotton panties pressed against the bulge of his erection. He'd have to finger her open before she could so much as hope to take him because he _knows_ he's bigger than any shrimp-dick her age.

What Rey needs is a man. Someone who can fuck her just as well as he can take care of her, give her everything she's ever wanted. Ben wants to be that, desperately, feels an instinctual need to protect her even though he can't. Not like this.

The images in his mind go from filthy-wrong to tooth-rottingly domestic.

Waking up cradling Rey to his broad chest, her hair a frizzy mess, speckled shoulders rising and falling as she sleeps while he watches. A kitchen with girlish aprons hanging up and a nook for the teas that she always claims are better than his coffee. Ben would clear his dining room table of the papers he's grading and they'd eat together, spend the remainder of the evening wine-drunk and slow dancing in the living room, end up in bed where they make love until they collapse in each others' arms, only to give in to sleep. The next day, they'd do it all over again.

That's what Ben comes to, milky white fluids spilling onto the carpet and over his knuckles. He finishes breathlessly, ears ringing and room spinning as a harrowing realisation dawns upon him.

It isn't that he wants to fuck Rey; he wants more than that. He wants a life with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poem is She was a Phantom of Delight by William Wordsworth. Check the whole thing out and you'll understand why I chose that one, specifically! ;3c


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all of the views, kudos, and especially comments. It all keeps me going! <3

It's a mystery to anyone how a man like Unkar Plutt ended up in charge of a home of boys and girls who run around in Catholic school uniforms with rosaries in their pockets. Ben isn't sure he's ever seen the man leave his home on a Sunday to attend mass, nor is he sure how he can _afford_ to send the kids to private school in the first place. Rey once told him that her social worker sent her twenty bucks for her birthday, but before she could so much as get to the card, her caretaker had already pocketed the bill for himself.

"I want to save up enough for a bus ticket." She also tells him, sat on the steps of his front porch while Ben leans up against the railing, smoking. The cigarette perched between his fingers is halfway out, meaning he only has about ten more minutes with her before he knows he should go inside. If she isn't studying with him, he tries to maintain a certain distance. Especially now that the weather is warmer, and she's wearing her little shorts again. In the summer, she'll trade her light sweater out for a tank-top and while it won't be the most he's seen of her it's still enticing to watch her run.

"Where are you gonna go?" The man asks, a trail of smoke following. One day, he tells himself, he's going to quit. Until the motivation arises, Ben doesn't mind giving the Reaper a helping hand on digging his early grave.

"Anywhere but here." Sighing, Rey hugs her knees close, until she can rest her chin upon one of them. The statement causes Ben's pulse to quicken, chest heavy with something like grief. It's not as though he's deluded himself into believing that the girl would reside next door forever, but the mere idea of her leaving still has him feeling panicked and dejected. What reason would he have to get up in the morning without the knowledge that he'll inevitably see her at least once throughout the day? They don't even have to hold a conversation; the visual confirmation that she's here and okay is enough to keep him going.

"I went to college upstate." Ben blurts out in lieu of his feelings, that foolish part of him hoping to keep her close, but still at an arm's length. Imagining Rey going off to university and making something of herself has him both beaming with pride (he's watched her grow up, knows how brilliant she is) and dreading the future. A future, presumably, filled with Rey meeting new friends - new _boys_ \- and forgetting about the creepy, old dude who lived next door and frequently watched her masturbate.

"Columbia. I've seen your degrees on the wall. I thought about applying there." Her comment makes Ben flush at the idea that she actually pays enough attention to learn things about him that he has never told her.

"You could get in. I'd help you with the application." He then offers, all too eagerly.

When Rey graduates next year, she'll only be seventeen. During middle school, she skipped a grade and managed to stay a step ahead of her peers. Ben doesn't understand, because as a student he was about as unmotivated as it gets, until some sort of creative writing project came up. In that, he excelled, yet he still lacks the drive for anything as intensive as novel writing. Those who can't do, teach. Isn't that how it goes?

The summer comes in full-swing, sun blazing and temperatures rising. _Global warming_ , Rey would say, claims to be an environmentalist. Despite being out of school for a couple of months, she still spends her mornings running. Ben continues to spend his own chain smoking on the porch, watching her tiny tits bounce (underneath the tank-top that, _yes_ , she's switched to) because she never wears a bra.

"Mister _Solo_!" Rey whines as she comes to a stop in front of his driveway, bending over to grip her knees as she catches her breath. "You're supposed to be keeping my time." The girl huffs when he starts out of his daze, swearing under his breath as he looks down at the stopwatch in his hand. She must have handed it to him before he got to his coffee. "One more time. I'll go around the block for three laps. _Pay attention._ " As she gets into position, she chides Ben, legs bowing at the knees as she inhales deeply. Then, she shoots off down the block and this time he _does_.

By the time Rey skids to a halt, he's got the time stopped and announces her numbers. They must be impressive because she pumps her fists into the air and cheers. After her little victory dance, she makes her way up his lawn and to his door. Ben quirks a perplexed brow as she, apparently, feels comfortable enough to let herself into his home at this point (a realisation which makes his stomach ache and his cheeks burn because having her with him feels like home).

The man scrambles after her, having to wipe away his snaggletoothed grin as he stumbles through the door.

"What, ah, is all this about?" He asks, shucking off his flannel slippers and shuffling towards the kitchen, where Rey is standing on her tippy-toes and going through his cabinets. Ben decides to lean up against the arched doorway and watch, unsure if he'll ever get to soak in this image anywhere other than in his fantasies ever again.

"We have to celebrate, duh. I'll make pancakes. I know how, I make them with Rose when I spend the night." Right. One of her friends, girlfriend to her best friend (the boy who sometimes waits for her outside of her window on the nights that she sneaks out, he's learned).

"As long as you clean up your mess." Ben resigns, sounding far more reluctant than he feels as he continues watching the girl flutter around the kitchen. Rey struggles to find everything she needs and occasionally asks him to reach something up high, giving him the opportunity to press against her as he stretches over her. She really is _tiny_.

During their impromptu breakfast, Rey's socked toes find his ankle several times. Each one, she lets out an embarrassed laugh and apologises. Afterwards, they clean up the dishes together and she bumps into his side as they work in tandem. The whole time, he can feel his erection bumping against the counter. Sweet torture.

When she leaves, it's with the promise to see him tomorrow and it dawns on Ben that this summer is very likely the last one he'll ever get with her. That thought in mind, he spends the rest of his day with his hand wrapped around his cock and watching the infomercials. He forgets to call his mother, and lets the answering machine pick up when she tries to reach him. That calculated distance between he and Rey is closing itself at the worst possible time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ben wears dad slippers and drinks coffee on his porch in the morning it's canon.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I chose Colorado as the setting for many reasons that I'm not explaining atm. Tried to throw in some 90s slang that hopefully isn't corny as hell.
> 
> As a reminder, Rey is 16 and Ben is 30 at this point in time.
> 
> Idk if this is how I should tag, but I've been tagging characters even if they're only briefly mentioned...

They become closer over the summer. Not because Ben tries, but because Rey flourishes in confidence, isn't afraid to walk into his home unannounced whenever she pleases. This forces him to become more careful about where he decides to tend to his needs, though he's hardly angry to see the girl so readily making herself a part of his life. It's only because she wants to butter him up, have someone to help with those college applications over the coming school year. The next two months, until August hits, are filled with wet dreams and more frenzied jerk off sessions than he's had since his teenage years. Never has he been forced to clean his sheets so often.

It's wrong, but whenever he finds Rey in his kitchen or lounging on his couch with MTV on or even riffling through the disorganized stacks of papers that he has on his coffee table, he likes to pretend she lives with him. She probably won't look much different within the next two years, already coming into herself as a woman even though she's still just a girl. Often he catches himself staring as her, admiring the way her features have grown from soft and rounded to being just sharp enough, cheeks still dimpled but now speckled with more freckles than she had at eight. Even her hair has changed from those playful double buns to her own invented (so she claims) triple buns, down the middle of her scalp.

Each time he walks her to the door, watches her to make sure she gets home safely on the later evenings, it's with a heavy heart. Rey leaving makes his loneliness inflate three-fold, until his chest is so tight that it physically hurts. Apart, Ben spends most of his time laying on the couch and staring at the ceiling (or touching himself, but the more she's around the less satisfying his hand feels).

"It's been weeks since you've called me." His mother's voice comes out steady and just accusatory enough to make Ben feel guilty, but not enough to make the woman sound like she's complaining.

Leia Organa-Solo was on the district school board throughout most of his life, though it wasn't nepotism that got him his job. Growing up, young Ben Solo was a terror, an inconsolable crybaby raised by a gaggle of sitters before eventually becoming a latchkey kid. He smoked pot, stole whiskey from his dad's liquor cabinet, regularly emulated behaviours he heard about in stories detailing his grandfather's turbulent upbringing. Anakin was the role model he'd never had the chance to meet, though as he matured he came to realise the regret that the man must have lived with until the day he died. While not enough of an epiphany to mend his broken relationships with his father nor his uncle, he has made an effort to fix things with his mother. Typically, they stick to calling each other but somehow she's found it in her busy schedule to make the hours long drive to his place.

"Sorry." Ben looks down at his feet not dissimilar to a child being scolded again (and in her eyes, he's sure that's exactly what he is).

Upon Leia's acceptance of her son's apology, she urges him to clean up so they can go out. Ben knows exactly where this is going, and she proves his suspicions true when they're sat outside of some downtown coffee shop where he's spent six bucks for a plain iced coffee.

"How have you been?" But what she really wants to know is why he's been so isolated (from her) for the past while. Pinching out a sigh, Ben finds himself wishing that he was still small enough to hide behind the café's menu. Try as he might, lying to his mother is going to be fruitless; ever since they reconnected, she's developed this way of prying answers from him regardless of whether or not he wants to voice his pathetic problems.

"I'm seeing someone, but it's not going to work out." The man lies after a moment of thought. At least this way, his mother won't push and maybe, _maybe_ he can lift some of this weight off of his chest. Leia looks rightfully shocked, recalling the few times she's set her son up and how terribly the dates apparently went.

"Well . . . Why not, honey?" She holds out her hand and it makes him feel sick because that edge of pity in her voice is misplaced on him. And yet, he takes it — the pity and her hand — and curls his much larger fingers around her palm. Frailer than he last remembers.

"It's -- she's moving away." Another partial truth. Rey will have to leave for college, he knows that she wants to go and that she'll get in; there's nothing holding her back. So Ben concocts a story about the brunette he met years ago, but began bonding with over the summer. He tells his mother about the way her eyes lit up when she first saw the small garden he keeps in the backyard, about the time she walked in on him after he'd fallen asleep in the middle of doing some preparatory work, glasses still on albeit askew. The entire time his cheeks are red and his mother is smiling softly, unaware that Ben is talking about his sixteen year old neighbour.

Leia parts from the café and heads home while he drives off in the opposite direction. Except, he doesn't return to his place immediately. Instead he spends hours driving around aimlessly, finds himself in some little mountain town before he decides to turn around and head back to Colorado Springs. By the time he's pulling back into his driveway it's dark out. There are no lights on in his house, but upon entering he notices the back porch's sliding door pulled open. Outside, Rey sits on the cement in a pair of shorts and an old, cotton t-shirt. She's smoking one of his cigarettes, looks up like she's shocked, before her expression quickly fades into nonchalance as she takes the next drag.

Something reels it's ugly head inside of Ben, and before he can stop himself he's stalking towards her and ripping the smoke out of her fingers. The man unceremoniously flicks it to the ground right next to her thigh and snubs it out with the toe of his shoe.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing, Rey?" Venom drips from his tongue, and were he not seething he'd feel guilt at the way she flinches before she scrambles to her feet.

"Chill out, Mr. Solo. It's no big deal." Her attempt to shrug this off only fans the flames of Ben's vitriol.

"You think you can just waltz in here and do whatever you want?" This is hardly about the cigarette -- it's about needing to push her away.

"Why are you freaking out?" Rey accuses, and Ben's shoulders raise up like a defensive porcupine because she doesn't understand and she _never_ will. A girl like Rey could never love him, and it isn't just the age different. She's sunshine and a cup of hot coffee in the morning; he's a tempestuous storm and soggy socks. While Rey has a future, his life is nearly halfway over. Ben should already be married, should have started a family years ago, but instead he's spent the past eight years fixated on a child.

"Get out." Ben motions towards the door, and when Rey parts her lips to protest he roars it again. " _Get out_." This time with feeling.

Rey stumbles through his home like a newborn pony.

It's the last time they speak until the holidays.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been so long, but I was working on other fics. Including! The Floweret companion fic, called Ledger. If you'd like to hear some of Rey's side of the story, you might want to check it out.

New Year's Eve. 2000.

The previous year, Ben and Rey spent the night together. By chance, he caught her after an evening jog and invited her inside. They watched a few bands play and drank sparkling grape juice before the ball dropped and — the world went on. She fell asleep on his couch, so he tucked her in with a soft throw blanket that he knew she was particularly fond of. While he should have been a gentleman and carried her to bed, taking the couch for himself, he knew he wouldn't be able to bear the image of her laying upon his sheets, tuckered out after a late night. He made breakfast for her the next morning.

This year, he thinks he'll be spending the holiday alone.

Schools are on winter break, so he’s spent the past two weeks inside, wrapped up in his own head. Lately, it’s been a bleak place; not much different than it had been before, only now he doesn’t have his tutoring visits from Rey to break up the monotony. He wakes up, downs two cups of coffee (straight black), and from there it’s sort of a blur. Ben goes through the motions, occupying himself with creating the next semester’s syllabus, avoiding looking out the widows, at that house just next door, the gentle light of Rey’s window. He smokes on the back porch, now.

It’s nearing midnight. Ben’s getting ready for bed when he hears a commotion outside, and looks up to find Rey struggling to pop out her screen. He thinks she’ll figure it out, but with a frustrated wave of her hands she sinks down, bottom-first into the snow where she just  _ sits _ .

After about seven minutes, she looks dangerously close to nodding off and he  _ can’t _ . If he leaves her out there, she’ll probably be swallowed up by the cold, and so he pulls on his boots and a jacket, not even bothering to zip up before he’s outside and making his way across the yard. She’s shivering, jaw trembling as her teeth clack together.

“Rey . . . come on, honey.” Ben reaches down and pulls her up into his arms, the term of endearment coming both naturally and unintentionally. A confused sound escapes her lips, but she nuzzles closer to the warmth of his chest, so small he thinks he could probably zip his coat around the both of them. Skinny, too. More bone than he expects to feel. Pushing those thoughts to the side, he carries Rey back to his house, settling her on the couch and wrapping her in a few guest blankets. There's alcohol on her breath, and the skunky stench of weed slinging to her meager sweater. What the hell was she doing outside so underdressed? And inebriated? Immediately, Ben berates himself for taking his eyes off of her, for allowing his own fears to get in the way of taking care of the girl.

“Thanks.” She mumbles, like her tongue is too big for her mouth, and rolls over onto her side. He wanders off to the kitchen, finding a package of powdered hot chocolate that he's probably had for years, but he makes a mug anyways. When he returns, he helps Rey sip it down, hoping to warm her up just a little bit more.

“What were you thinking, Rey?” He almost chokes on her name.

“Dunno. That I wanted to go to bed.” She's slurring, lids fluttering shut as she sinks heavily into the couch. Ben frowns, reaching down with trembling fingers to brush a few strands of damp hair from her forehead. Hopefully she doesn't get sick.

“You can sleep here.” He tells her, more relieved that she’s in safe hands than anything.

“Mm . . . ‘member last year?” Rey asks softly, voice half-muffled because of the way she’s turned, where she can’t see him nodding. “I was hoping the world would end, you know? Plutt and I had just really gotten into it. I wanted to die.” Both arms wrap around herself vulnerably. “Then there you were.” A soft sigh escapes her chapped lips.

“I’ll always be here.” Ben says before he can stop himself.

“Promise?” Rey is drifting now, on the precipice of sleep.

“Yeah,” he swallows thickly, “I promise.”

And then she’s out, chest pushing and pulling with each deep breath, expression relaxed. Angelic, as if her horrifying confession had never happened. Ben’s lips find her temple, press a tender kiss to the skin there.

When he realises just  _ what _ he’s doing, Ben jolts back, coming to a wobbly stand, as if the brief, lingering contact had scorched him. Bile burns the back of his throat, and he runs to the nearest bathroom, where he empties his stomach of the beers and takeout he’d had hours earlier. He shouldn’t have done that, shouldn’t have touched her, no matter how soft and warm she looked curled up on his couch. The fact that Rey will never even know does nothing to absolve his sickening guilt, only furthers the idea that he won’t be able to suppress his urges around her forever.

That night, Ben doesn’t sleep, but in the morning he gets up and makes bacon and scrambled eggs like he would any other day. Rey shuffles into the kitchen at the smell, bleary eyed and hair sticking out everywhere, tempting him to reach out and smooth her tangled hair down. He doesn't.

“Morning.” He grumbles, turning his attention back to the eggs.

“Morning.” She yawns, and he catches her pouring herself a cup of coffee out of the corner of his eye.

“When did you start drinking that stuff?” Rey used to give him shit about how much  _ he _ drank. She shrugs.

Just like that, they’re back to where they were before summer ended, before Ben lashed out. Rey sits across from him, still wrapped up in one of his throw blankets, looking more and more awake with each sip of caffeine. Underneath the table, his hands clench and unclench painfully, chest heavy with guilt and desire. This is what he wants, every morning.

“How’d you do in English?” He asks as he watches her descend his porch steps from the doorway.

“Got a B.” Rey doesn’t sound satisfied.

“See, you don’t need me.” He offers, trying to be optimistic.

“I don’t like the school tutorer.” Rey says after a moment of hesitation, and then she rushes off, far too quickly considering the ice-slick sidewalks. Somehow, she manages not to fall. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on twitter! @nsfwars.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration finally struck. Sobs.

“Mister Solo!” Rey bounds over to the bleachers of relatives and friends with her blue and gold robes flowing behind her, shining a bright smile Ben's way. He scrambles to pop a mint in his mouth to cover up the bitter whiskey on his tongue.

He hasn't been handing _today_ very well. Hasn't been handing much of _anything_ very well, ever since she got her acceptance letter to Columbia roughly two weeks ago. It's wrong — he should feel proud; he's the one who helped her fill out and send in the application. Of course they were going to accept Rey, a track star who graduated a year early despite being close to aging out of the system. The only reasons he ever got in were his mediocre grades and family name, but she deserves this because she _worked_ for it. Spent hours sitting in his living room doing homework and studying for tests.

“Hey, kid.” Ben rumbles as Rey barrels closer, until she's practically headbutting his chest (fitting, he thinks, her school mascot _were_ the rams). Hesitating, he wraps his arms around her shoulders, but doesn't hold her close any longer than necessary. Something like disappointment might flash across her face, but it's quickly replaced with well-earned satisfaction as she shows off the diploma rolled up in her hand.

“Nope, graduate! Not kid.” She insists.

_Cute_. His chest clenches.

“Okay. _Graduate_.” Reaching over, he readjusts her blue cap.

“Thanks for coming.” It's not like Plutt is here for her. As far as Ben knows, he's a shitty deadbeat of a caretaker. So, when Rey asked if he'd come, how could he say no? As if he hadn't already been planning on watching her walk across that stage in the first place, no matter how painful.

“No problem.” He shrugs. The half-full, metal flask burns a hole in his pocket.

“Can you take a few pictures for me? Just, over here.” Rey points to a grassy patch of the field where not many people have congregated, then she produces a Polaroid camera from underneath her robes.

“Okay.” Ben nods stiffly and follows close behind. They take a few of Rey standing in front of a wide school banner in her robes, and then a few after she peels off her robes to reveal the white dress underneath. It’s simple cotton with no distinguishing design, other than some frills, and probably straight off the racks of Walmart or some thrift store, but it makes him shudder nonetheless.

Rey drags him over to another part of the grassy field, going on about how she used to have track meets there while he half-listens. Not because he’s disinterested, but because he knows this might be the last time he’ll ever get to see her long, lean legs underneath a little dress. Robes are being shoved into his arms and he finally snaps out of it, fumbling to ball them up and tuck them underneath his arm as she gets into position.

After he’s taken about four pictures she comes up to his side and takes a couple, shaking them out in an attempt to get the pictures to come out faster. The others are safe inside the little itinerary he received before taking his seat earlier.

“Oh,” Rey drags out the word, “look at this one.” The colours in the picture still aren’t fully set, but he can see exactly what awed her. It must have been the flash, but around her head, in the still-dewy grass, is a spray of light akin to a halo. In her white dress, she really does look like an angel.

“Heiligenschein.” Ben murmurs, earning a confused look. “It’s just — something that happens in pictures sometimes. I like this one.” He adds, voice strained. He _really_ likes this one.

“Then keep it, to remember me.” Rey insists as she reaches out for her robes. Ben wants to say that there’s no way he could ever forget her, but instead he slips the remaining pictures into the little booklet of student names and hands it over to her.

“Thank you.” He nods, holds onto the bottom corners of the little picture so tightly that they’ll bend.

“No problem!” Cue the silent _but_. “I should probably go find Finn.” It’s impossible to hide his disappointment. “I’ll see you later, Mister Solo.” She adds, as if to comfort him.

“I’m not tutoring you anymore, so you can call me Ben.” He practically insists, trying to get just a few more seconds of her time.

“Then I’ll see you later, Ben.” Rey waves wildly, then bounces off to meet up with her friends. Ben’s dick strains against his jeans. He watches until she’s swallowed up by the swarm of other students, and soon leaves to buy a frame (and another drink) before he ruins the precious photograph with his bear hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On Twitter! @nsfwars

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment!


End file.
